


Moments Of Clarity

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Gap Filler, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He could be saving the country or losing his soul. He could be with the Elrics. Or he could be alone. She doesn't know. She is completely in the dark. She is not with him and that's all that matters.</i> Written in December 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments Of Clarity

He goes away – no, he is taken from her. And she thinks, yes, that's the only way one could have tore us apart, _by force_.

He could be anywhere.

He could be wounded or dying; he could be fighting. He could be saving the country or losing his soul. He could be with the Elrics. Or he could be alone.

She doesn't know. She is completely in the dark.

She is not with him and that's all that matters.  
  
-  


(he could be dying)  
  
-  


Death (or love) is no longer an abstract concept.

She guesses she should thank Lust for that. If "thanks" is the appropriate word, that is.

She told her he was dead and so he was dead. To her he was dead. For a few moments, until she could see him again, _Roy Mustang died_ and that was all.

The clarity of it surprised her. Even now – many almost-deaths after that, so much blood and trial after that – Hawkeye remembers it like one might remember breaking a bone, the unexpected focus the pain gives you. She didn't find out something she didn't know already – she has no doubts about Roy, after all, a blessing and a curse – but him _dying_ gave what she knew a sharper edge.

Yes, maybe "thanks" was the exact word.  


-  


She looks for her gun, anybody's gun, something, anything. Whoever was holding her – she is not sure of the chronology of it all, from the moment she felt the blade cold over the skin of her neck to the moment Roy was _taken_ from her the details escape her, the only bits clear now are the moment of Roy's arms around her, the moment he buried his face against her, the moment she thought _I'm alive_ and knew why – whoever was holding her let go and rushed to help Scar.

Superiority of numbers means nothing against the Homunculi, she knows.

She looks wildly for her gun, any gun, around, under the mess of bodies and stone left in the wake of those gone (_Roy_) below, somewhere, who knows where. (She hates not knowing.)

She thinks it would be a kind of poetic justice if she were the one who killed Bradley and she wonders if this is the kind of story they will tell, years later, when everything-  
  
-  


(it isn't and she doesn't; Bradley dies, but not by her hand)  
  
-  


She sighs, wants to say it to the walls and buildings: `If I can't see you, it's like you were dead.´

She has forgotten the clearer air outside in the open, and when she leaves the underground secret veins of Central, she realizes, how much has happen. And now she has to wait.

Roy always compliments her patience – always in a tone that suggests he rather considers it a vice not a virtue – but right now she understands how bad she really is at waiting.  
  
-  


He doesn't die.

And to her that's more of a shock than if he had actually died.

`You're alive,´ she says, grabbing the neck of his shirt.

`Try not to sound so disappointed about that.´

She wants to reply something, something that's not silly or conceited, something that's not light, but all the words that come to her mind, all the lines seem limited, not enough. Her face falling closer is all the language she has left, bereft of definitions that would fit: her hair brushes across his nose. And then the ground rattles with some underground explosion and they have to run away, however they can (wounds, scars), run for just a little longer.  
  
-  


`Everything okay?´ Edward Elric asks. `You sure your eyes are just fine?´

`Why? What happened to your eyes?´ She cuts in, alarmed.

Roy puts his arm over her shoulder to prop himself up.

`I'll tell you later,´ he says reassuringly, trying to grin.

`But are you alright now?´

He strokes her cheek with the tip of his fingers and stares back at her, eyes completely focused. He nods.

`Yes. I can see perfectly.´  
  
-  
  
Central doesn't burn. Amestris is not wiped away. They are alive. It's almost distressing – to start to figure out everything over again. To be alive and whole. And together.  
  
-  


She has only allowed him to see her cry a couple of times in her life; it's not embarrassment – she doesn't want to burden him. Even now, she hides her face in her neck as she helps him to walk, hoping he won't see.

`What's wrong?´

Her words come muffled against his chest.

`I'm sorry I couldn't be with you. In the last moment. I'm sorry.´

He holds her close and her tears dry against the torn fabric of his coat. He murmurs her name, he says _Hawkeye_, not "Riza", not "lieutenant", he says _Hawkeye_.

`Yeah,´ he tells her. `I wish you could have been there too. With me.´

`I'm never letting you out of my sight again,´ she states with the venom and stubbornness of a little girl.

Roy laughs. (she wonders, how can he laugh now? he is almost destroyed, hands bleeding and he can barely stand). His body earthquakes with laughter and she can feel it in every bone.

`Yes, I like that deal. It's better than the old one. It doesn't involve you shooting me.´

She makes a strangled sound, between a chuckle and a moan, and he holds her closer still, as if he were the one helping her stand up and not the other way around.

She thinks that line has always been very blurred with them.  
  
-  


 

They pick up wounded and strays in their wake.

He says to a bloody and battered Armstrong, `Hey, snap out of it. None of us are supposed to die for the cause.´

That seems to do the trick cause Armstrong opens one eye and props himself on one elbow and looks at Roy and grins.

`Not even you?´ He asks.

Her arm is underneath Roy's to give him balance and with blind and familiar hands, finger by finger and rib by rib, she realizes how much thinner he's become, she presses the palm of her hand to each breath of his.  
  
-  


His element is the fire and she thinks it fits him.

She wonders what will happen now, with his alchemy.

Roy smiles at her and says, `I'm happy to just think about the next cup of coffee.´  
  
-  


Outside the radio station, after they have seen the Furher's wife be carried away, crying. Hawkeye stares at the woman, the soldier that politely help her into a car. She gets distracted by things ending and things beginning.

The radio – it hasn't stopped broadcasting – says _peace_, says _reconstruction_. And it's a bit too early for that.

Roy grabs her by the shoulders and pushes her against a marble column, presses her against him. There's no warning, nothing said.

He tastes like dust and somewhat bitter, her mouth is dry and his lips are dehydrated. She twist her hands into the sides of his coat and drags him closer. The stubble of his chin draws her jawline.

He breaks the kiss almost immediately, shaking his head and with a mortified expression on her face.

`Sorry,´ he says. `I promised myself I would wait to do that.´

She nods numbly.

`I understand,´ she says. And she does. But that doesn't stop her from kissing him back.  
  
-  


In the hospital they smile at the unfamiliar face of the younger Elric.

`Nice to finally see you, Alphonse Elric,´ Roy says and solemnly shakes the thin boy's hand.

She watches the shaking of hands, his hand go into the air graciously, bandaged and nobody knows how much of a scar will be there with the years. She feels a pride of such intensity that it makes her want to wince.

She promises to find out, how much time those wounds in his hands will take to turn to scars, and how much time will it take the scars to fade, if they do at all.

And if they don't fade, Hawkeye will use them as a reminder, as a memento, as an anchoring place when she holds his hand.

But she will be there.


End file.
